I said it in my review of You Need a Budget[5] but this is one of the only budgeting tools I know of that can take you from the “paycheck to paycheck” mentality and put you in the true budgeting mentality. It has that built into it, which is extremely powerful.

How To Win

I want to give this to someone who will use it, not someone who will sign up after they’ve won, use it for a little while, and then never log in again. I want the winner to tell me, in six months, that because they won this contest, their finances were changed for the better. So, this one will be a little different, you will have to do two things:

Go You Need A Budget[6] and sign up for the 7 day trial. You won’t need to enter any personal information, you can just download YNAB, play with it for a few days, and either buy it or it deactivates.

After 48 hours, their system automatically sends you a 10% off coupon. If you want to buy it, we can offer participants in this giveaway a special 15% off coupon not normally made available. Just email after the contest ends and I can send you the code.

Then, if you like YNAB and want to enter the contest, answer this question in the comments: What is the hardest thing about budgeting? Is it figuring out how much to put in each category? Is it tracking your spending? Maybe it’s hard sticking to it or making the numbers all work at the end of the month? Whatever it is, let us know and you’ll be in the running to win a copy of You Need A Budget.

The point of making you try it beforehand is so that you don’t win and then discover the tool isn’t for you. I don’t want it to go to waste when someone out there can take full advantage of it.

The contest will end on Sunday, November 29th, 2009 at midnight and it is void where prohibited.